Internet Marketing Learning Center

What is an audience? No longer defined by or confined to a specific time or place, an audience is merely a group of individuals who share a common affinity or activity. To optimize your business' audience experience and thereby the potential for a return, you must understand the individuals who want or need the products or services you offer, right?

Perhaps I'm a bit behind the times, but for the past couple weeks I've been cozying up to Reddit, the social news website where registered users submit content in the form of a link or text "self" post. And I'm definitely not alone—in a recent blog post by Reddit CEO Yishan Wong, it was reported that the site brough in 3.8 billion page views and 46 million unique visitors last month alone.

How do dentists effectively leverage the Internet? According to research conducted by dental practice marketer, TheWealthyDentist.com this past summer, nearly 70% of survey participants said their practice uses Facebook.

Often, fictional children's characters have inspiring messages and morals to share with their audiences. For the annual spooky celebration, we treat you to the wise words of some of our fine, feathered friends and potential costume-choices this Halloween with a few social media tricks up their sleeves.

A recent study funded by pharmecuetical giant, Pfizer indicates that nearly a quarter of American physicians use social media in a professional capacity to exchange medical information. Of those surveyed, 14% said they contributed new information on a daily basis to forums, news feeds, walls, etc.

Let me pose a hypothetical for you: It’s late on a Saturday night, and you start having symptoms. You don’t know how serious it is, but you’re in pain and a bit worried that something might be really wrong. Chances are there isn’t much that can be done over the phone anyhow, short of calling in a prescription but you don’t want to go sit and wait in an emergency room for hours just to be told there’s nothing wrong; But you can’t do nothing. You try calling your primary care physician, but it is Saturday, and he is unavailable. You get in touch with an on-call physician, but you’ve never met this doctor, and he doesn’t know you better than the files he’s freshly opened with your name on them. But because ER doctors don’t know your medical history any better than a piece of paper can tell them, they end up having to do a whole lot of tests just to rule things out if you’re having any sort of complex symptoms.

When or if ever I have to take medication—whether an ordinary and seemingly harmless Aspirin, to a prescription antibiotic complete with a lengthy list of plausible side-effects; I’m reawakened to the finely-tuned, interconnected system of instruments beneath my skin.

It’s no longer a matter of opinion at this point that social media is a game changer in how modern businesses operate. As such consumers hold all the cards. In the good old days, if we had to contact a company or organization, we dialed our landline telephones and gave them an old fashion call. After a choose-your-own-adventure style menu, and countless minutes spent listening to upbeat lyric-less songs drone on and on, the call would be rerouted to an agent.

“[Health] is something that’s interesting to us,” said Melissa Barnes, Twitter’s head of agency and brand advocacy, at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco Monday.
 And we couldn’t agree more—health is incredibly interesting and of vital importance. The industry is impacted by policy and regulation, geography, business, science and technology. In essence, there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to health and it varies circumstantially from person-to-person.

At the Health 2.0 presentation, Barnes said that health-related tweets have increased 51 percent this year so far.

Given the ever-rising demand for health resources, health care marketers may find a host of opportunities on social media, with a space to connect with patients and further expand and establish their expertise to help the masses pursue optimal health.

How do you deal with negative social media backlash? Social media is, for lack of a better word, social. And in social situations there can always be a Debbie Downer in the mix, especially when your online audience grows there will most likely be people that will be openly negative about your business or an experience they had.